Microsoft was insisting that IE was part of the operating system, so any company selling PCs with Windows had to provide IE. They were threatening to withdraw licences from those companies who refused, and went so far as to say that Windows would fail to work if IE was removed, a fact which has been shown to be untrue, and they have now admitted that fact.
The US Government accused Microsoft of using one monopoly to achieve another monopoly. Some git at Microsoft said that things can get very dangerous when governments step in and involve themselves with business affairs. What he forgets to state is that markets fail when you have one company with a large monopoly (erm, think of any examples?) One purpose of governments is to step in to prevent this from happening, and allow as much competition as possible.
Microsoft did escape a $1m a day fine though - not that that's much to them, anyway.
On a related note, Bill Gates was apparantely hit in the face by a custard pie, or something similar. Whether a die hard Amiga fan, or just a frustrated Windoze user was responsible, we may never know...
